As many of you know, I find joy in refining the system that shapes the way I work and in sharing my approach here on the Long Road blog. So let this be the latest…
The metaphors we use shape the future we create. Upon entering the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, you are immediately confronted by four enormous Corinthian columns supporting a spacious atrium. There they stand, four…
I am learning how to draw. It started during the pandemic, but if I am being honest, my practice has languished. Over the last few weeks, however, I have felt the need to redouble my…
I’ve been a little quiet here lately as this very difficult semester comes to a close. It was healing yesterday to spend some time with Dr. Fauci before our MSU doctoral convocation. In his address…
The transformative power of values-enacted scholarship is only really felt in lived-experience. Just before spring break, and only two weeks after the mass shooting on the MSU campus, a small group of staff, directors, and…
On Thursday, March 2, 2023, I was honored to receive the 2023 MSU Institutional Champion Award for Community Engagement Scholarship. Below is the text of my remarks at the moving awards ceremony that took place…
On Tuesday morning when I made my way to the sacred circle, past the resilient tree, to Linton Hall there was a silence such as I had never heard before. It was not the silence…
A week that began with a nightmare, ended with a dream. The Nightmare On Tuesday morning, I received the call from my wife I've long dreaded—she said there was a 911 call about an active…
To reweave ourselves into community, reconnect ourselves with our purpose, and realign university values with institutional practice, we need to create structures and cultivate habits that reinforce the work that gives our personal and institutional…
This question, What does religion sound like?, inspired the creation of a remarkable collaborative project on Religious Sounds between Amy Derogatis of Michigan State University and Isaac Weiner at The Ohio State University. Yesterday, I…
The only way to ensure that transformative culture change takes root and grows across higher education is to build coalitions within and across institutions and organizations with colleagues who are structurally positioned and values-oriented and…
Since Thursday, I have been reflecting on the powerful keynote address Professor LeConté Dill gave at the 43rd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Unity Dinner. Drawing on King's insistence that "ower, properly understood, is…
A new year brings new calls for a return to personal blogging as an antidote to the toxic and extractive systems of social media. Giving our attention and creative content to major social media corporations…
There are times when your life seems to be telling you a story. When this happens, it is wise to listen. In October 2022, my life began to speak the language of Ubuntu, the powerful…
Last week we celebrated the Ascension of the Department of African American and African Studies in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. What follows are my remarks emphasizing the hope that…
As my eighth year at Michigan State University begins, I have been reflecting on the work we have done and the work that lies ahead. In many ways, this past semester and the next mark…
The news came early on July 5 in a text message from my friend Rick Lee: Richard J. Bernstein, our beloved teacher, died on July 4, 2022. In life, Bernstein taught and embodied a commitment…
The themes of the 2022 Honors Leadership Conference were: Building Community, Being a Scholar, and Presenting Yourself. In my opening remarks to our first-year honors students, I focused on values-enacted leadership and the importance of…
A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to an amazing group of new deans at Michigan State University about the role of the dean in higher education during a period of intense transformation.…
On September 12, 2021, we remembered the life and legacy of Ted Loder, my stepfather, and long-time Senior Minister at First United Methodist Church of Germantown. In collaboration with my step-siblings, we created the montage…
To the Class of 2025, Welcome to Michigan State University, to the College of Arts & Letters, and to the MSU Honors College! You begin your MSU journey at a time like no other. As…
Ted Loder, eloquent preacher, fierce advocate for justice, long-time minister of the First United Methodist Church in Germantown, and my beloved stepfather, died on Thursday, April 1, 2021. Ted always encouraged us to watch for…
Six years have past since I wrote A Few Notes on Productivity, a post that outlined my approach to productivity in academic and administrative life. More than 11 years have somehow passed since I wrote…
What follows was crafted for an MSU Honors College panel discussion entitled "Sharper Focus/Wider Lens" on March 8, 2021 focusing on culture change in higher education and at Michigan State University. A video of the…
Below is a message I sent to my colleagues in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University in the wake of the first turbulent days of 2021. Dear College of Arts &…
Agate, Nicky, Rebecca Kennison, Stacy Konkiel, Christopher P. Long, Jason Rhody, Simone Sacchi, and Penelope Weber. “The Transformative Power of Values-Enacted Scholarship.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7, no. 1 (December 7, 2020): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00647-z…
There is a line from Seinfeld that cuts to the heart of the distinction between sincerity and ethical candor. In a desperate attempt to beat a polygraph machine, Jerry turns to George, a practiced liar,…
On National Voter Registration Day, I sent the following message to students, staff, and faculty in the College of Arts & Letters. Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Staff, and Faculty, As we navigate…
The following reflections are offered in the context of the opening colloquium of the College and Beyond II: Liberal Arts & Life series. #collegeandbeyondii The current pandemic is an apocalypse — an uncovering. It reveals at once…
Dear MSU Class of 2024, Welcome to Michigan State University and to the College of Arts & Letters! You are embarking on an education that will forever shape the course of your life. At the…
Dear College of Arts & Letters community, “Anger,” Audre Lorde insists, “is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.”Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of…
Agate, Nicky, Rebecca Kennison, Christoper P. Long, Jason Rhody, Simone Sacchi, and Penny Weber. “Syllabus as Locus of Intervention and Impact.” Syllabus 9, no. 1 (May 28, 2020). http://www.syllabusjournal.org/syllabus/article/view/300. This is a flash article related…
As this disquieting semester comes to a close, it’s appropriate to pause for a moment to reflect on the distance we have traveled and the path that lies ahead.
In October 2019, I attended a three-day workshop on Driving Institutional Change for Research Assessment Reform jointly convened by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) on the beautiful HHMI campus in Chevy Chase,…
On September 26, 2019, I had the opportunity to address the Michigan State University President’s Council, which includes the Deans Council and the Executive Leadership of the University, about the values-based strategic planning process we…
Dear Class of 2023, Welcome to Michigan State University! As we prepared our Welcome to MSU video this year, I found myself unexpectedly face-to-face with a picture of my past self as a first-year student…
Earlier this summer, I had the honor of offering the closing keynote address of the 2019 Association of University Presses annual conference held in Detroit. The address was entitled The Transformative Power of Publishing, and…
Michigan State University was awarded a four-year, $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support further development in the research and teaching of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), with an emphasis on Indigenous languages.…
In the summer of 2018, a group of MSU Deans came together to write an essay that was published in Inside Higher Education under the title: "Can Michigan State Recover and Chart a New Path…
In June of 2018, I held a short workshop about the HuMetricsHSS initiative with colleagues attending the 2018 Summer Seminar - East gathering of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages that was meeting at…
One year ago today, Rachael Denhollander addressed the Ingham County court in Michigan, her abuser, and the institutions that failed to protect her and her #SisterSurvivors. Listen again to part of what she said on…
Dear College of Arts & Letters Alumni, Students, Staff, and Faculty, One year ago this week, the courageous testimonies of the Sister Survivors began to sow the seeds of change at Michigan State University. Taking courage…
In the open letter we wrote to the College of Arts & Letters community in January 2018, we promised to look critically at ourselves, recognize our failures, and rebuild the trust that is required of…
Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends, For generations, the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University have demonstrated the capacity…
At the heart of my keynote address to the 2018 Association of General and Liberal Studies in Pittsburgh, PA is this idea: The intellectual and ethical habits we need to transform higher education are the…
In her recent article in the Journal of Family Violence, Amy Bonomi, Chair of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University, insists that sexual assault and relationship violence cannot be effectively redressed until we undertake…
Welcome to the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University! As you embark on your educational journey here at MSU, I invite you to consider the doors that are opening for you all…
WASHINGTON, DC - Today a group of colleagues from the Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses met to advance the Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) initiative. It…
In this introduction to issues 1-2 of volume 66 of the Journal of General Education, Sophia Pavlos and I articulate of the meaning and importance of thick collegiality for the Journal of General Education and…
The second Radical Open Access conference was held on June 26-7, 2018 at Coventry University on the "Ethics of Care." I participated from a distance via Skype, delivering a tweet storm style presentation based on…
The 2018 Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Summer Session North was hosted by the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University May 30-June 2, 2018. I was invited to participate on a…
Dear College of Arts & Letters alumni and friends, By now many of you have heard that the university has agreed in principle to a $500 million global settlement with the survivors of the sexual…
“Practicing Public Scholarship.” Public Philosophy Journal 1, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.25335/m5/ppj.1.1-1. Situating the Public Philosophy Journal at the intersection of philosophy and questions of public concern, this essay articulates how the journal hopes to practice…
The Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University invited me to give two talks on the value of creating and nurturing online digital scholarly communities on April 19, 2018. The two presentations afforded me…
It has been difficult to write for the public in the months since posting the Open Letter to the College of Arts & Letters in the wake of the survivor impact statements that are transforming…
In the introduction to volume 65, issues 3-4 of the Journal for General Education, I draw on insights from Cathy Davidson's book, The New Education, to argue for a New General Education, one that is…
Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends, In the wake of the survivor impact statements, the Nassar sentencing, and the resignation of President Simon, we have entered an important period…
Last year at this time, we spoke of beginnings and routine, of resolve and the quotidian habits required to weave them into a meaningful life. We set our intention to focus on five priorities through…
As we navigate the intense period of transformation in human communication through which we are living, identifying ways to nurture sustainable communities through which scholarship can be shared, discovered, and enhanced gains urgency. So many…
Late last month, the faculty on the College Advisory Council (CAC) gave me a writing assignment. In preparation for our Fall 2017 faculty meeting on November 17, they asked me to take a step back…
Last weekend was homecoming on the Michigan State University campus, and I found myself reflecting on the meaning and significance of gratitude. So many alumni returned to campus to give thanks for all the ways…
“Pragmatism and the Cultivation of Digital Democracies.” In Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy: Thinking the Plural, edited by Marcia Morgan and Megan Craig, 37–59. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. As technology enables…
Dear College of Arts & Letters Class of 2021, Welcome to Michigan State University! As you embark on the adventure of discovery and growth that is a liberal arts education in the College of Arts…
This month marks the beginning of my third year as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. When I began as Dean in 2015, I spoke about advancing the arts and humanities at the…
To support the Humane Metrics for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HuMetricsHSS) initiative, Michigan State University has received a $309,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The collaborative HuMetricsHSS pilot aims to create a…
When Ryan Kilcoyne and I met late last year to plan the 2017 MSU College of Arts & Letters Dean’s Report, we wanted to show what we have long talked about: situating the liberal arts…
Lessons from the Dragon Boat None of us knew quite what to expect on Saturday as we gathered at Hawk Island for our one-hour training session for the Capital City Dragon Boat Race to support the…
The last two weeks of March this year brought sadness twice over to the College of Arts & Letters. On March 18, 2017, we lost Anna Norris, a beloved professor of French Literature who taught…
“The Liberal Arts Endeavor: The Arts of Liberty in a Time of Uncertainty.” Journal of General Education, 65, 2 (2017), v-vi. Even if, as Hannah Arendt suggests, “we are always educating for a world that…
In early November last year, I returned to the Leviathan. In it, Thomas Hobbes grapples with the question of sovereignty and considers the human condition in a state of nature in which there is: …no…
As a junior faculty member, I attended every possible workshop on tenure and promotion I could find. Inevitably, however, as the shared wisdom of those who had successfully been tenured and promoted washed over me,…
“Care of Death: On the Teaching of Reiner Schürmann.” Philosophy Today, January 31, 2017. doi:10.5840/philtoday201713141. A homage in the guise of an essay, this is the story of the last course Reiner Schürmann taught. As…
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff in the College of Arts & Letters: Many of you have written to express your concern about the executive order signed by the President of the United States on January…
Shortly after Barack Obama won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, I wrote a blog post entitled Toward a Mature Politics that began with the Kantian idea that enlightenment requires us to relinquish our self-incurred immaturity. Then,…
With the new year comes the deluge of resolutions. This ritual of new beginnings affords us an opportunity to begin anew, for, as the ancient proverb reminds us, “well begun is half done.” Aristotle, Politics,…
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff: We in the College of Arts & Letters seek to advance the core values of Michigan State University — quality, inclusiveness, and connectivity — by practicing inclusion as a matter of institutional habit.…
Last year we developed a strategic plan in the College of Arts & Letters that called for a cluster hire in culturally engaged digital humanities that focuses on humanities questions of race, inclusion, cultural preservation,…
This is the text of the response I made to Emanuela Bianchi, The Feminine Symptom: Aleatory Matter in the Aristotelian Cosmos, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014) at the 2016 meeting of the Society for…
“The Liberal Arts Endeavor: On Editing the Journal of General Education.” Journal of General Education, 65, 1 (2016), v-vii. In accepting the editorship of the Journal of General Education: A Curricular Commons of the Humanities…
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, there is a famous passage in which he reminds us that “to be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day;…
Traditionally, a curriculum vitae (CV) is an articulation of one’s qualifications and accomplishments in an academic context. The Latin root of the term suggests the extent to which the CV indicates a “course of life.”…
Whenever I talk to faculty and students about the use of social media in the academy, I advocate for a community building approach. The idea is relatively simple: communication has the power to enrich or…
Michigan State University will use a three-year $1.2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a multi-university research project to improve the teaching of less commonly taught languages, or LCTLs. Faculty from MSU’s Center for…
Dear College of Arts & Letters Class of 2020, Welcome to Michigan State University! As you begin your journey in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, let me tell you a…
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the headquarters of the Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C. early last week to take part in a discussion about a…
In the wake of last week’s violence, we have again become caught up in the fraught dichotomy into which public discourse always seems to force us. It is as if somehow the human capacity to…
A year ago today, as I began my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, I made reference to a passage by Peter Raible, one that draws from…
Lists are the current vernacular of the internet. There is even a social media site, li.st, wholly dedicated to the creation and sharing of lists of all sorts. So, as I considered how I might…
de Avlillez, André Rosenbaum, Mark Fisher, Kris Klotz, and Christopher P. Long. “Public Philosophy and Philosophical Publics: Performative Publishing and the Cultivation of Community.” The Good Society 24, no. 2 (2015): 118–45. The emergence of…
Sharing your work online, especially in its early phases of development, can open new paths of inquiry and establish connections with scholars who can enrich your work.
On three different days in three different meetings, the same note was sounded. It struck a cord that resonated with me as I listened to faculty from three groups talk about their experience in the…
On the surface, it appeared to be a simple question of style: should we spell out “and” or use the ampersand when referring to the College? But form and content are intertwined; no style presents…
Institutions of higher education across the country have long talked about diversity and inclusion. Many have established offices of equity or inclusion and hired staff to ensure that the institution is living up to its…
In his inaugural address as president of the college he founded, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg spoke of the values that animate the institution: "We do not regard an education as complete that aims only at improving the intellect,”…
I have been owning up to this affliction in each of the introductory department meetings I have had with faculty across the College during my first semester as Dean. Of course, the more cynical among…
“Symbols effect the translation of discourse into a course, a path.” Schürmann, Reiner. “Symbolic Difference.” The Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 19/20, no. 2/1 (1997): 9–38, 33. It was early in the afternoon on November 21st,…
This was initially posted on Medium as part of my Writing Along the Way project. Engaged Scholarship To speak of “applied” scholarship is to divorce theory from practice in a way that impoverishes both. This,…